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Neuromancer,
by William Gibson
Not since Star Wars has one science-fiction film so firmly planted
its footprints on every other film that has come after it. Which is ironic
considering how openly The Matrix wears its influences and foundational
texts on its sleeves. Yes, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, and Paul Virilio
run through that film like unleashed viruses; yes, its decidedly Eastern
tinge has as much to do with Hong Kong's de facto wiremaster Yuen
Woo Ping as it does with the glossy anime thematics that have been forming
off the Eastern seabord like a tsunami for the last twenty years; and
yes, Keanu Reeves gave another William Gibson-penned vehicle -- the awful
Johnny Mnemonic -- his droning absence. But now it's pretty easy
to see it: Gibson's seminal cross-genre masterpiece about a neurally neutered
hacker who is wired into something entirely different than everyone else
has entered the popular consciousness to the point that it has become
yet another household product. After all, where do you think they got
the term "matrix" from anyway? That's right, from the same book
that invented the term "cyberspace." For a crash course on the
past, present and future, read this book. It changed literature, film,
philosophy, technoculture -- hell, culture itself. What, it can't change
you?
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